


The Ametrine Chorus

by fanfoolishness (LoonyLupin), LoonyLupin



Series: Starshine Over Beach City: Moments from Steven Universe [3]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Corrupted Gems, Corruption, Gen, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:49:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22658824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/fanfoolishness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/LoonyLupin
Summary: Rose Quartz reminisces among the ruins, and the cost of the war weighs heavy on her.
Relationships: Pearl & Rose Quartz (Steven Universe)
Series: Starshine Over Beach City: Moments from Steven Universe [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1523993
Comments: 6
Kudos: 34





	The Ametrine Chorus

Moonlight glittered on the water below, silvery rounds erased and restored with the steady, unrelenting motion of the waves. Rose watched the moon’s mirror fade and reform a dozen, a hundred, a thousand times from the crumbling archway of the Lunar Sea Spire.

She came here often, or at least often for an ageless being; at least once a year. Sometimes it was with Pearl and Garnet both, Garnet’s future vision leading them onward to find corrupted Gems swimming at the spire’s base or lurking in the lower levels. Sometimes it was a chance to show Pearl something new; a pair of nesting albatrosses at the Moon Goddess’ shrine, or a human ship, frail and wooden, traversing the waters. 

She stood here alone tonight, the salt breeze twisting her hair in knots and tangles around her face. The wind and waves whispered in hushed voices, a song all their own.

Above the ocean song she heard other music, a distant memory. Notes precise and thin and regimented played in the back of her mind, an Ametrine chorus as delicate as any back on Homeworld. Their voices had swelled here in the Spire, an opus for their beloved Diamond millennia ago.

She’d hated it. 

Once she would have reveled in their song, in the respect they meant it to convey. Once she would have twirled a finger, asking them to play again. Some such concerts had lasted fifty years or more on Homeworld, but the last chorus of the Lunar Sea Spire had been brief. She had learned too much from humans, even in those early days before Pink Diamond vanished.

Human music, she’d discovered, was rough and raw. It was made with reeds and wood, bits of metal and clapping hands. It was clumsy. It was full of errors. And it was _passionate_ , raised up with voices from the smallest to the oldest, every song imperfect and fleeting. After five hundred years of the war, even the most distant skirting of human settlements had still left Rose with human music in her mind, and she could not help but love it.

She had tried to forget the human songs for the sake of the Ametrines. Tried to act the Diamond, tried to reward her subjects for their efforts, attempted a smile that felt frozen and false. But the facade had cracked, as it did so easily then, and she had banished the Ametrines from her sight in a flash of pique. They had saluted and left her presence, but she had seen tears in the eyes of more than one of them.

That night she and Pearl sneaked down to Earth’s surface and joined a human campfire, the people awed at their appearance. They brought the humans food, and the people sang and clapped. Pearl danced, gracefully at first, but was pulled into a circle of chanting humans who took her hands and raced around the fire with her. Rose had laughed so, seeing the look of surprise on Pearl’s face settling into a small, happy smile. And when the human voices lulled but the pipes and drums still played, for the first time in her long life, Rose sang too. 

As herself.

The wind howled in a sudden fierce burst, whipping through the ruins, and Rose shook her head, remembering where she stood. Her bare feet brushed against the broken stone. A pebble clattered away from her, the sound lost among the shattered columns. She shivered. 

She heard another sound, then; a keening wail that was no seabird. She stiffened, then reached for her sword where it stood leaning against the moldering wall. Her hand tightened around the familiar grip as the wail came closer, its cry mixing with a slapping, wet, dragging sound.

The corrupted Ametrine rounded the corner, a misshapen, creeping creature of violet folds and rolls, fin-like appendages clinging to the broken floor. She reared her enormous round head, spikes of gold erupting from the opening between her thick lips, and she sang.

This whistling, wanting sound was nothing like the music of Homeworld, nothing like the music of humans. It sent Rose staggering, her head ringing with the pain of the creature’s cry. Her hair whipped around her in the sea wind. She gritted her teeth and leapt forward, her sword held sure and true.

The blade tore through the Ametrine’s form, leaving behind a final shivering note that warbled and faded. The gem fell into Rose’s waiting hand. 

She knelt amid the ruins, the wind cold and cutting against her skin, her hair a violent storm around her. She cradled the Ametrine between her palms, a bubble forming gently in her hands despite the raging wind.

“I failed you, too,” she whispered. She sent the bubble home. It vanished in a flicker of clean, pure light, and she listened in case there were more creatures to fight.

The wind dropped. Rose sat within the ruins, within the silence. 

There was no music here.

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently walruses may be the cause of the legends of the sirens, for they can make a ghostly, ethereal whistling sound. I picture the Ametrine corruption looking similar to one.


End file.
